Welcome to Trouble Free Pool

We would like to welcome you to TFP, the webs leading Pool related website. We invite you to please Register to create a new account. Doing this will give you full access to the forums, where you will be able to receive personalized advice concerning your pool. We hope to see you soon!

Let me say, I am a total novice! Pool is 6 years old and we've always taken samples to pool store and put in what they recommend (and sell!) Recently (6/2) I went to pool store and they told me alkalinity was 0 and told me to add sodium bicarb. I added 120 lbs over a few days based on what they were telling me using my samples. Needless to say, this was a HUGE mistake. Since then, I have learned a lot from this site and understand the errors I made in blindly following their advice.

I have not added any chlorine and turned off feeder so no chlorine getting in. Don't know if adding the bicarb made chlorine go up so high?

I now have the kit and am becoming a junior chemist. However, I do not know what to correct first. From what I read, a partial drain is probably necessary to bring down CYA?. I hesitate to do this because we did that several years ago and it ruined (wrinkled) my liner. I just replaced my liner last summer and would like to avoid that. I will do it if necessary though.

Re: Received Test Kit - Now What?

Based on that CYA reading, your best bet is to drain your pool at least 50% and refill, then retest your CYA. CYA that high is very hard to manage with normal maintenance much less. Technically since the test only goes to 100 ppm, it could be higher. You could dilute the water 1:1 with tap water and test again, but that will only tell you an accurate number above 100. Either way, you should drain as much as you can and refill. Make sure when you drain, you leave at least 1 foot of water in the shallow end so that you don't risk shifting or wrinkling your liner.

Re: Received Test Kit - Now What?

Wow, that might be a TA record.

You CYA might be WAY above 100ppm ... the scale is not linear, it is logarithmic.

You should start replacing water to lower the CYA. You need to leave at least 1 foot of water in the shallow end to reduce the risk of a problem with your liner. Might require doing this twice and then retesting the CYA.

Re: Received Test Kit - Now What?

Congrats on the test kit! What to do now:
- CYA must come down is right; a drain or few partial drains should be in order to get CYA down (your ideal range is 30-50)
- After that, the FC needs to be increased per the Chlorine/CYA chart to match your new CYA - very important

To prevent overload .... one last questions: please explain your TA test of over 500. Normally after the 0007 reagent we use reagent 0008 to turn the sample green, the the last reagent 0009 to make it bright pink/red. Did you have different colors during your test?

Re: Received Test Kit - Now What?

Unfortunately you will have to do a rather large drain and fill. There are quite a few posts around here instructing on how to do it without damaging your liner. I do not have this experience though, so I will leave that for you to research or someone else to answer.

Lastly, losing 12.5ppm of FC is pretty extreme. You probably have something organic growing in your pool (algae). I would prepare to have to do a SLAM.

Lets get your CYA in order first. You would need a whole semi truck of bleach at this point to get a SLAM underway at your CYA level.

- - - Updated - - -

Wow I am slow. There were no answers here yet when I started to type my response!

- - - Updated - - -

I agree, something seems wrong about that TA reading. Your pH would not be at 7.6 with a TA of 500+.

- - - Updated - - -

That would be 50 drops of R-0009 correct? Also TA is measured in incriments of 10, not 25. Your Reading of 525 is not possible to achieve. Even at incriments of 10 assuming that was your error. A TA of 210 is very high.

Re: Received Test Kit - Now What?

Ok - I will try to clarify a few things!

TODAY I determined TA by taking a 10 ml sample and adding 1 drop R-007, 3 drops R-0008 and had to add 21 drops of R-0009 before it turned red. I multiplied 21 by 25 and that is where I came up with 525. (Directions for when high TA is anticipated)
YESTERDAY I followed the directions using a 25 ml h20 sample. I added 250 drops of R-0009 (not kidding!) and it never turned red (I did get it to turn yellow). I decided to try it with 6 ml's of h20 and it took 14 drops to turn red and with 12.5 ml's it took 25 drops to turn red. (Almost used the entire bottle of reagent).

I did get the water tested at the pool store today - I didn't even take time to listen to their advice - I wanted to have a comparison - which I know is inaccurate, but I wasn't sure my numbers are right! They show CYA at 127, Chlorine 15 (highest it can measure), PH 8 and Adj Alk 120.

From what I understand, I need to address CYA before anything else. I will look into how to safely do a drain and start that tomorrow. Thank you again for the advice!!!